


protected passed pawn

by procellous



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (it will riiiise. like some other things that will riiiise. this is a dick joke.), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dadmer Cleftjaw, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Gen, I beat canon up in a back alley and stole the characters. my city now, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Ironborn Culture & Customs, Lyanna & Sansa parallels give me life, Mutual Pining, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Theon Greyjoy, Pro-Sansa, Rating will change, Rescue Missions, Secret Passages, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Tattoos, absurd amounts of internal monologue, gonna reforest the world between these two, nothing happens don't worry, seriously the slowest burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-01-04 21:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21204551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procellous/pseuds/procellous
Summary: They will call her the Queen of Winter; they will say that she married the sea and brought him to Winterfell. They will say that wolves lay at her feet and killed stags and lions and dragons for her. They will say that even Death knelt before the Queen of Winter. Ere a thousand years pass and the summer grows long again, she will become a legend.For now, there is only an unexpected choice for Sansa Stark that will remake the world.orGame of Thrones: Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil





	1. Theon I

**Author's Note:**

> _In chess, a passed pawn is a pawn with no opposing pawns to prevent it from advancing. A passed pawn that is protected by its own pieces is called a protected passed pawn._
> 
> this is my baby please be nice!

THEON LEANS AGAINST THE RAILING, one arm on the ratlines as he watches the towers and walls of King’s Landing come into view, a lazy smirk spreading across his face. His father and sister can waste their time raiding the North; there’s nothing there but stale revenge, a decade late. Theon has other plans; he has his eye on a sweeter prize. 

And if they’re plans and a prize that mean he won’t have to choose between the family of his blood and the family of his—the family that _raised him_, he corrects himself viciously before he can finish the traitorous thought—well. He can tell himself that he doesn’t feel torn between the two, that he knows where he belongs, that his loyalty is certain and steadfast all he likes; he’s never been good at lying to himself, and he’s not sure which king should hold his loyalty—he swore to follow Robb, after all, knelt before him and swore his sword to the man more a brother to him than any son of his father, and he truly has no great love for his father, but…

But the Iron Islands are _home_, bone-deep and aching; the smell of salt and tar and fish, the screams of the gulls, stone under his feet and sand between his toes. Stepping onto the shore again had reminded him of that; the sudden loosening of something in his chest that he didn’t remember had tightened. His memories of his life before Winterfell are fading around the edges, some of the details blurring with age—he can’t quite remember the shape of his mother’s eyes or her smile, but he does remember her hands, weathered and worn, the chiseled lines of her tattoos as they wrapped around her fingers and up into her sleeves. 

He drew the Islands over and over again, on the margins of papers and on scraps of parchment: the crags and cliffs towering out of the sea, the last sight he had of home as his mother wept on the dock and Lord Stark’s hand rested heavily on his shoulder, keeping him from running, from diving off the ship as it pulled away from everything he had ever known, to sink or to swim, he wouldn’t care—he’d see his family either way. 

He can’t forget that. He still dreams it, sometimes, even after all these years: the impossible cruelty of that large, gentle hand. 

All those years in Winterfell, a decade as a hostage, knowing that his life was not his own to spend, telling himself and anyone who would listen that he was Ironborn, that he was his father’s son and heir, that he wasn’t a Stark and didn’t want to be, like a child shoving his fingers into his ears to drown out a truth he didn’t want to hear. Years of lying to himself that he wasn’t jealous of Jon—who didn’t have the Stark name, but had the blood, had the love of a father, had the place in the family—or worse, of Robb, who had the name and the blood and the love and everything, the perfect honorable little heir. Worse still, that Robb was so sincere, so genuine, without a trace of mockery or of pity when he called Theon _brother_, when they pressed their hands together to share blood. Years of trying to believe that it didn’t wound him with every reminder that Winterfell wasn’t his home, could never be his home, a thorn in his flesh every time he tried to remember the words of his mother’s songs, a reminder sharp and stinging as a slap every time he couldn’t pray. Barbs in words, tangling in his flesh, digging deeper and deeper no matter what armor he wore. 

Too much a kraken to ever have a real hope of belonging in Winterfell, but too much a wolf after all these years to belong to the Iron Islands, either. 

He had always known the first, had known it with every jab sent his way; but the humiliation of discovering the second still smarts months later with all the breathless, gasping pain of a blow to the stomach, just like discovering that his father hadn’t hesitated a moment to sacrifice him to the dream of a crown and revenge—but he shakes off the thought like a dog shaking off water. He’s not Snow, to endlessly pout and brood about the unfairness of the world. Once he’s got a ship full of Lannister gold he’ll have shown them. Not a green boy at all, not made soft by the Starks, but _Ironborn_, as hard and as strong as any of them. 

Best of all, though, the shining prize he craves to soothe the sting of his father’s dismissal, is Sansa Stark: a pretty girl under heavy guard in a castle famous for never falling in battle. He’s going to steal her from right under the lion’s nose and carry her off, her and Arya and as much gold as he can fit into his ship. He’ll be a legend for it, he decides; they’ll sing songs about Theon Greyjoy’s brave rescue of the Rose of Winterfell and her little sister, and every girl who hears about it will dream of him coming in at their windows to carry them off as well. 

He doesn’t know what he’ll do afterwards, and if he’s entirely honest with himself—though he so rarely is—he’s not exactly sure how he’ll get Sansa and Arya out of the keep anyway, but that’s just details. The important part is that he’s going to prove his old man wrong about him. He’s going to prove everyone wrong. 

King’s Landing is disgusting. The city is foul, filthy, fetid, and every other word for repulsive that he can think of. It is—somehow—worse than the Twins. The air is thick and oppressive with heat. Smoke lingers and lurks over the roofs like a stain on the sky. He can’t imagine why anyone would ever _want_ to come here; it is, without a doubt, the worst place Theon has ever been. The Targaryens must truly have been mad, building a city like this and deciding to rule from it. 

The city is a stinking mass of flesh, sweat and despair fuming in the humid air, and Theon longs for Winterfell—it may be cold and bleak and barren, even in the summer, but at least the air is clean and clear, free from the stench of rot. 

The towers of the Red Keep rise over the other buildings, and Theon fights the crowds to get closer. There are heads impaled on the walls, on full display for the indifferent crowds. Theon’s gorge rises. Flies buzz around them as they bloat and decay in the heat, but they’re still recognizable. 

Lord Stark’s dead eyes stare down at him. 

_You’re better than this, son,_ he had said once, his hand on Theon’s shoulder while Theon was drowning in rage and bitterness and lashing out with knives forged of his own pain, unable to think beyond the pulsing rage of his own hatred. He had only barely turned ten and two, with a crumpled and tear-stained letter hidden in a drawer as though that could change the terrible truth—that Alannys Harlaw had walked into the ocean with stones in her pockets, that his family was torn apart even further—but he had faltered, and he had wept into Lord Stark’s embrace like a child, and let himself be comforted by the man who had killed his mother. 

And now he’s dead. Lord Eddard Stark, who had always seemed as immovable and immutable as the stones of Winterfell, is dead. Despite Robb being crowned King in the North, it hadn’t seemed real that Lord Stark was dead; it hadn’t seemed possible, but here’s his head, rotting in the sun. 

Drowned God, and Sansa and Arya are hostages here. His own feelings about Eddard Stark are as tangled as a line left out in a storm, but he did love him; they’re his cherished daughters, with an uncomplicated love for him. How many times have they had to pass under the sightless gaze of their father’s rotting head? Had the Lannisters forced them to watch the sword swing?

Shit, no wonder Sansa had all but begged Robb to bend the knee, if these are the people holding her prisoner. Theon tries to imagine seeing his brothers’ heads speared on the walls of Winterfell—but of course Lord Stark would never have allowed such a thing; Rodrik’s body had been returned to the family, to be mourned and given to the sea. If anyone could have found Maron’s body, it would have been returned as well. This—this is sick. 

_I’m going to get them out of here_, he tells Lord Stark’s head silently. _I promise. I’m going to rescue them._

_I’m going to make my father proud._

(He’s not sure which father he means.)

He catches a glance of gold out of the corner of his eye, and half-turns to look. Baratheon and Lannister banners march out of the gates and through the crowd, red and gold and black. Theon shoves his way through the throng, looking for Sansa and Arya. If Arya’s in the procession, he’ll be surprised; little Arya Underfoot has a gift for slipping out in crowds. Hell, he’s not even sure if the Lannisters have her—she’s probably slipped away by now. Or they’ve locked her up too tightly for even her to escape. 

Drummers and trumpeters pass by, with a herald shouting _Make way for the King!_ that Theon doubts does any good at all to part the crowd of people, craning their necks for a better look at the royals. Spearmen follow them. If he wasn’t still feeling sick about seeing Lord Stark’s head on a spike, he might be amused that half of them hold their arms like they’ve never touched a spear in their lives. 

The royal family is in a litter. Theon barely spares a glance for the boy-king in red and gold, his face twisted like he’s eaten a raw onion, or for the boy-king’s mother, though on another day his eye might linger on the swell of her breasts and the line of her leg under her skirt. Instead, it’s the girl sitting next to them that he can’t tear his eyes from. Sansa’s dress is as fancy as the elaborate pile of braids in her hair—a match, he notes, to the Queen’s, strand for strand and lock for lock—and a smile is nearly painted onto her face. 

She looks miserable. 

She should look like a happy bride, a girl about to become queen, and to the rest of the crowd she probably does—but Theon knows Sansa, knows what her smiles look like, knows the way they spread across her face, the way they shine out of her from within. The smile she wears now, the one that strains her cheeks and dulls her eyes, is fake. It’s armor as much as his smirk is; and he recognizes the stiff way she holds herself, the careful way she moves. There are heavy bruises under that pretty damask, he would bet his head on it. How did she get those? Who would—

Oh. Of course.

The _fucking_ Lannisters. 

Their eyes meet as her gaze sweeps over the crowd. He can see her falter, see her lips form his name, and then the crowd shifts and he loses sight of her around a corner. 

She’s gone, but he can’t forget the sudden, fleeting hope that entered her eyes. 

Dagmer is waiting for him by the docks, an eyebrow raised. 

“Learn anything?”

“Yes,” he says, his fist clenched. “Yes, I have. Get the men ready. We’ll climb the eastern walls, take their gold, and be gone by the dawn.”

The Red Keep looms larger by night—torches flicker in the high towers, and he has no doubt the place is crawling with guards. 

But nobody will be expecting them, not tonight. There’s a kind of refuge in audacity: why would a single ship of reavers try their hands at the Red Keep? What kind of reckless, overconfident idiot would face off against all the knights of the Kingsguard? (Well, almost all—Jamie Lannister is still Robb’s prisoner.)

They’re not trying to take the castle, though. If they’re lucky, they’ll barely have to fight anyone. They just want the gold, and there’s plenty of it here. 

Best of all, though, they won’t even have to scale the walls—not when his scouts found a sheltered cove with a path up into the bowels of the keep. 

Theon could almost bless Maegor for building so many secret passages into his fortress. 

His Ironborn fan out once they get inside. Their orders are to find as much gold as they can carry and get back to the cove before dawn. If they start fights, that’s their problem to deal with.  
Theon’s not interested in gold or jewels, not really. No, his focus is on one thing only: finding and rescuing Sansa Stark. 

If this were a song, she’d be at the top of the tallest tower; but if life were a song then his father would be pleased to see him again. 

_Think, Theon_, he orders himself. The Red Keep is too large to search in one night, and he doesn’t know the place at all—he can’t risk running around in circles. If he were Sansa, where would he go?

…The Red Keep has a godswood, doesn’t it?

There _is_ a godswood in the Red Keep, but it’s little more than a garden. There’s no unnatural heat from the hot springs, just the thick blanket of humidity that hasn’t eased with the dusk; no leaf litter on the ground, muffling the sound of footsteps. There’s no weirwood, either, just an uncarved oak in the middle. There are some low stone benches around it, probably for noble ladies to sit on, so that they don’t stain their finery by kneeling in the dirt.

The godswood at Winterfell always felt vaguely menacing to Theon, as though it knew he was an intruder, and when he was little the grimacing face of the weirwood had scared him: the red sap dripping from its eyes and mouth looked too much like blood. He still prefers his own god, faceless and nameless, that he knows only in the smell of salt and the sound of the waves; but he has felt the presence of the Old Gods. For all that Lady Catelyn had a sept, Winterfell was their stronghold. 

This godswood just feels empty. There’s no presence of the Old Gods here, no menace or sense of being unwelcome; just…no, not even emptiness. It’s _nothing_. There are no gods here at all, and if there ever were, it was so long ago that they’re long since gone. No gods, old or new, live here: just trees planted in rows and well-maintained paths, like someone had read about a godswood and decided that they wanted one but missed the point entirely. 

Sansa is here, though; he can see her red hair through the trees. She’s got guards flanking her as she kneels before the oak, her head bowed in prayer; when she rises, brushing the dirt from her skirt, they follow her out of the godswood and into the castle. 

Theon, silent, follows them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time on protected passed pawn: Sansa thinks about Lyanna; Theon and Sansa kiss.


	2. Sansa I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what I love? I love parallels.
> 
> (Warning for a mention of suicide ideation.)

OUTSIDE HER WINDOW THE NIGHT IS DARK AND MOONLESS; the stars are dim through the smoke of the city. It’s too hot by half, the air sticky with heat as though the city itself was sweating. 

Sansa moves carefully as she brushes out her hair, tying it in simple twin braids for bed. She winces as an uncareful movement pulls at a still-healing cut—Robb’s latest victory is written in blood and blooming bruises across her back and stomach, and a large purpling mark shaped like the meaty fist that made it darkens on her cheek. She’ll have to powder over it come the morning; Joffery laughs as she’s beaten bloody and Cersei smirks over her goblet of wine, but they never like to see the evidence of it in the morning. 

She tries to tell herself she treasures the pain—after all, every blow that she takes is undeniable proof that Robb is alive and winning against the Lannisters. These are her battle-scars, her triumph. She cannot swing a sword; she cannot draw a bow; she cannot hold a lance. All she can do is survive until Robb comes. The Red Keep will be here battlefield; words will be her weapons and courtesy her armor, and she’ll survive and he’ll come and they’ll go home again. 

Except for Father and Arya. 

She sets down her hairbrush and sighs. For all the bold things that she can almost convince herself that she believes, alone in her room in the cover of night she can admit to herself that she wants to die. She thinks about it every time she says that her brother is a traitor and that she’s loyal to King Joffery, her one true love. A little songbird, performing on command. She could leap from the tallest tower; she could hang herself from the bedsheets; she could open a vein and bleed out. She could take a beating and simply not move again afterwards. It would not be a good death, but it would cost the Lannisters their hostage. She could see her father and sister again, and apologize for being so stupid. 

Her father had never liked speaking of her Aunt Lyanna, only saying that she was beautiful and willful and dead before her time. Someday, perhaps, Robb will speak of her the same way. 

Did Aunt Lyanna feel like this while she was being held by Rhaegar Targaryen? Did she have the same fears, the same guilt—for her father and brother had died demanding her return—the same desperate hope of seeing white and grey banners on the horizon? Did she, too, pray for her brother’s victory, for him to come and rescue her?

When—if—_when_ Sansa goes home to Winterfell, she’ll light a candle at her aunt’s statue. 

Arya’s absence is a wound she thinks will never truly heal, though her other hurts may close and their scars fade. Without her, Sansa is the only daughter of Winterfell left in the world, the last she-wolf alive. She cannot give the Lannisters the satisfaction of her true despair. She will survive, she promises herself that, for Arya’s sake if not her own. Arya would be furious at her for giving up. She will win her battles, just like Robb is doing, and Robb will tear down the walls of the Red Keep, and she will see them beg for mercy. Robb will give her Joffery’s head, just as she told the boy that he would, and there will be no one to make her afraid ever again. 

She has to believe that. Anything less would be to doubt Robb. 

Something raps against her window. She glances out, expecting a branch or a lost bird, and instead sees a man lounging along the narrow sill as though he belongs there, casually eating an apple. 

Theon Greyjoy grins at her, a flash of teeth against the night. 

It can’t be. Theon is with Robb. She had thought she had seen him in the crowd earlier, but that had been a coincidence—a similar face and a desperate hope. She knows no fearless and honorable knight will come to her rescue, to whisk her away to Robb’s side or to Winterfell, not until she sees Stark banners on the horizon. Not until her brother gets here himself. 

(Perhaps that is only more foolishness, just like hoping for a true knight to stand against the monsters; a scared little girl running to her big brother against the dark of the night, trusting that he can protect her from her nightmares and fix all her mistakes. Wars are not fought with wooden swords, and life is not a song. She can almost hear Cersei’s laughter. _Oh, little dove_.)

And yet—and yet Theon _is_ here, undeniably so. Not a knight come to save her, the way she once dreamed, but at least Theon was never cruel to her. Mean, yes, but in the way an older brother was—dismissive and thoughtless and always more interested in Robb—but no jape at her expense could compare to the constant knife’s edge of fear, being a lone wolf in a den of lions. 

Is this how he felt in Winterfell, a lone kraken in a den of wolves? She feels a sudden rush of shame at the snide remarks she would sometimes share with Jeyne about him. 

She opens the window, shaking herself out of her thoughts, and he slides in casually, as though he belongs in her bedchamber. He pushes his hood back, shaking out his messy hair. 

“Someone will see you,” she hisses. Fear is a living thing in her stomach, twisting and biting like a snake. If she’s seen with a man in her bedchamber, her betrothal will be called off—which might be a relief, except that she is only too aware that the betrothal is the only thing keeping her head from joining her father’s. 

“I have plenty of experience not being seen in girls’ bedchambers, never fear.” Once she might have flushed at the implication there, but she cannot bring herself to care now. “Is Arya here? I didn’t see her earlier.”

His voice catches her off-guard—his accent has thickened since she saw him last. She’s heard the Iron Islands accent described as sing-song, but with only Theon’s fading accent to reference, she hadn’t really known what that meant until now. Theon’s voice glides from one word to the next, swaying from syllable to syllable like the rocking of a ship. It makes him almost pleasant to listen to. 

“She ran when Father was arrested. I don’t think…” She shivers, despite the warm night. “I don’t think she’s still alive.” The words come surprisingly easily, though she has never said them before, could hardly bear to so much as think it so plainly. _Gone_ is easier; _gone_ still holds the possibility, however faint, that she’ll come back. Arya was always disappearing and reappearing as it suited her. She might still turn up. “Did Robb send you?”

“No.” Theon smirks, but it’s shaky. “He sent me to Pyke to treat with my father, and my father sent me—that’s not important. I decided to come here instead.”

“Why come here? What’s in King’s Landing that’s so important?”

She can see him hesitate. The smirk falters. Theon’s not a good liar, not really—he hides under bluff and bluster to avoid the truth. “Glory,” he says, chucking her chin like he had when they were children. “The glory of proving that I could do what no other man could—steal you from right under the lions’ noses.”

Something dark comes into his eyes as his hand traces lightly along the line of her cheek. The bruise—she had forgotten about it in her tentative joy. She half-turns her face away as though he would forget about it the moment it left his sight. Ever so gently, he turns her face back towards him to study the mark. His eyes flash like lightning. 

“Who did this to you?”

“I—I stumbled,” she lies. It sounds limp and unconvincing. “I’m so clumsy and stupid, after all.” She forces herself to laugh. The lies come easier when it’s Joffery across from her; Theon is different. He’s family, practically a Stark, and she can’t lie to her family. 

His eyes turn thunderous, fury written across his furrowed brow and twisted mouth. It’s like watching a storm break across his face, but his hand stays gentle on her skin. She knows she’s safe. Theon’s rash and reckless at the best of times, but he’d never hurt any of them. 

“You stumbled into someone’s fist, did you?” he says. “Come with me—I have a ship, I can take you to Winterfell, or to Robb, I can—” he falters. She doesn’t dare hope that he was about to say _protect you_. 

How many times has she dreamed of Winterfell? How many times has she longed for a gentle drift of snow, for the curling patterns of frost? For the wind in the red leaves of the weirwood, the quiet, candle-lit solitude of the crypts, the thick furs and heavy cloaks that swish around her ankles, the howl of wolves in the night, the blue shadows of the mountains against the sky…

“I can’t leave,” she says, quiet, ashamed of the way her heart breaks to say it. 

“Why not? What’s keeping you here?”

“If I leave, the guards will see me and catch me before I even reach the walls of the keep, let alone the walls of the city, and if we’re lucky we’ll both be killed on the spot.” She’s thought about it so many times. She’s never been sure if she’s being realistic, or merely justifying her own cowardice. It might be both. “You should go, before they see you. Tell Robb I’m alive and well, and that I’m waiting for him.”

“They’re beating you,” Theon says, a strange note in his voice. “I’ll not lie to him that you’re well while they’re beating you, and I’ll not leave you to their mercy.” He spits the word like a curse.

“I’m not going to leave you here. I know a secret passage out of the keep.”

Theon holds out his hand, expectant. Sansa hesitates. 

“They won’t see us?”

“It’s a _secret_ passage, princess,” he says, voice teasing. “They won’t see us.”

“All right,” she whispers. Her heart thuds in her throat. “Give me a moment?” She shoves her sewing kit into a pocket and finds the plainest cloak she has with her, glad that she hadn’t undressed for bed yet. 

“This way.” Theon takes her into a wall, into a dark narrow passage filled with dust and spiderwebs and—she forces herself not to cry out in surprise—animal bones. 

She clings to his hand. She can’t see his expression and he doesn’t say anything, but his grip tightens too. 

She’s not sure how long passes in the dark, following Theon up and down the winding corridors and trying not to think about the occasional crunch under their feet, when they step out into a small chamber. Ledgers and papers are piled around the room, but there’s something else there as well. 

Leaning on a stack of tax records is Ice. 

Sansa grabs it, tucking it under her cloak and slipping it into her belt. It’s huge and unwieldy, but for all the weight it carries it’s light in her hands. This is her father’s sword, and her grandfather’s, and their fathers’, back and back into the mists; the Stark sword, in Stark hands again. 

Theon lays a hand on her shoulder. “We need to go.”

She clutches the wolf-skin scabbard in one hand, and Theon’s hand in the other. It’s a small eternity in the dark, going down invisible stairs. Her feet ache from the cold stone. 

“Stay close,” he says, and leads her into the torchlight. “We’re almost there.”

Sansa nods, hurrying to match his quick, long strides. She’s not sure she’s ever seen this part of the Red Keep before. 

_I am a wolf of Winterfell. I am not afraid._

The torchlight brightens and she can hear voices echoing off the stone. Theon hears them too; his eyes widen and his face turns ashen. 

“Shit,” he hisses, gripping the sword at his belt for a moment before letting go. She can see the calculation in his eyes—they don’t know how many guards there are, or how skilled they are. Theon could be overwhelmed, or just beaten, and if she’s lucky they’ll merely stab him to death before he can be brought to Joffery.

The voices get louder. The torchlight gets closer. 

Theon pins her against the wall, shielding her from view with his own body. His face is very close to hers; his eyes seem to shift from green to grey in the uneven light. She can feel her heart beating too-fast under his warm palm, like a bird trying to escape the cage of her ribs. 

He leans in, close enough that the curve of his nose presses against her cheek, and murmurs, “Sorry about this.”

She has just enough time to think _oh no_ before his mouth is on hers and she can’t think at all. 

There’s raucous laughter from the guards, and then they turn aside. Two servants kissing in a forgotten corner is nothing, after all; and who would expect to find Lady Sansa, the King’s betrothed, shoved against a dirty wall?

Theon pulls away, and Sansa stares up into his eyes, dark and intent. Some distant part of her mind that still dreams of princes, kept quiet since her father’s death save to trill sweet birdsong for Joffery, notes _Theon is quite handsome, isn’t he?_

_No,_ she tells it. Theon is her brother’s best friend, and thus entirely off-limits. Besides, he’s—he’s _Theon_, all cocky swagger and arrogant smirks and outrageous stories from the Iron Islands that she _knows_ he made up. He—she’s not actually sure what it is he does in Wintertown, but she knows it’s not proper. He’s utterly unsuitable, in short, and she can’t stop looking at his mouth and remembering the way it had felt on hers. 

She shakes away the thought. 

“We should…”

“Aye,” he says. His hand is shockingly gentle as he brushes a lock of her hair back from her face and draws her hood up over her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Theon's daring escape plan hits a snag; Dagmer Cleftjaw is a better father than Balon Greyjoy. (It's a low bar.)


	3. Theon II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …technically still Sunday. By half an hour.

THEON WON’T BREATHE EASILY UNTIL KING’S LANDING IS FAR OUT OF SIGHT. The sooner the dawn comes, the better—the longer they linger here, the likelier they are to be caught and killed by goldcloaks. 

Through the dark passages they go, Theon hoping all the while that he remembers the path to the sheltered cove. He follows the sound of distant waves until he can smell the salt of the sea, but it doesn’t lead them to the cove where the rowboats are waiting; he must have taken a wrong turn somewhere in the dark. 

They’re outside the keep, at least, but balanced on a thin ridge of stone on the cliff-face, the ocean crashing in the darkness far below. The night around them is black as ink, with only a few weak stars overhead and a thin sliver of moon rising over the water. He can just make out _Sea Bitch_’s lanterns bobbing in the waves. 

If he were alone, he’d turn back, but Sansa’s hand is still in his, and he can’t admit his mistake to her. The ridge probably leads to the cove, anyway. They can make it. 

It’s a long drop into the black water of Blackwater Bay from here, and the water is treacherous; full of large stones and jagged rocks waiting just below the surface to rip the hull of an unwary ship open like the belly of a fish under a knife. The path is as narrow as a blade’s edge, and the sea legs that Theon so quickly and so proudly regained threaten now to betray him to the waves. 

Stones slide and crack as they come loose, forming distant splashes as they hit the water. Sansa gasps faintly, then cries out, her hand slipping from his. 

He’s diving before he’s even processed that she’s fallen; the ocean is cold and familiar as his body pierces the waves, eyes open against the salt and dark. She’s limned in faint blue, struggling and splashing and gasping for air. 

All of the Starks were taught to swim in the pools around Winterfell by Lady Stark, while Theon told himself he wasn’t jealous of their gentle lessons. Theon had learned to swim in the rougher, colder ocean, and his brothers were not gentle teachers; their lessons were mainly shoving him into the water and letting him figure out the rest on his own. 

Sansa is struggling to keep her head above water in the rough waves, sinking more than she’s rising. He wraps an arm around her ribs, pulling her close and keeping her face above the water as he hauls her towards the shore. 

It’s slow going: she’s heavy, the weight of her wet clothes and thick cloak threatening to drag them both under, but he won’t let her drown, not when he’s just gotten her out of that blood-stained misery of a city. She clings to him like a barnacle, her arms around his shoulders; he can feel her heartbeat under his palm, slow but steady, and he prays it won’t weaken. He’s already in the ocean; if there was any place at all in this thrice-damned, gods-forsaken city to pray, it would be here. 

_Please_. 

The white sand of the hidden cove almost glows in the faint moonlight. Sansa coughs and splutters up water as he drags them ashore, sand sticking to their wet skin and clothes. His hair is curling out of its tightly-wrapped queue, tickling the sides of his face. 

“Are you all right?” he asks as she sags against him. The light of the city is muffled by the high, sheer cliffs protecting the cove; she’s little more than a silhouette. 

“Theon?” she says, sounding dazed. Her head lolls against his shoulder. “Where are we?”

“Outside of King’s Landing.” His fingers brush through her loosening hair, checking for blood or a lump. “Did you hit your head?”

“I…I’m not sure.”

_Wonderful_. “Can you stand up?”

“I think so.”

He helps her to her feet, her hands cold as ice in his, and guides her into one of the rowboats. Something is pressing against his arm, under her cloak: Ice. The sword is tucked into her belt, hidden under her cloak. 

_She kept the sword?_ he thinks, incredulously. No wonder she could barely keep afloat; it’s not a small sword. 

Sansa trembles and sways as he rows them out to Sea Bitch. Theon really hopes it’s only exhaustion and not a sign of anything worse. She’s a Stark of Winterfell, born to the frozen North; surely that little dip couldn’t freeze her blood. 

He hopes he’s right. It’ll be hard to explain to Robb that he got his little sister killed on an attempted rescue mission. 

He has to half-carry her up the ladder to the deck, Ice clutched in her hands, and leads her into his cabin. The door closes with a solid wooden _thunk_, and he sags against it as the exhaustion hits him in a rush. 

“Get on the bed,” he tells her with a jerk of his head, too tired to dress up his words as he pulls the leather thong holding the remains of his queue in place and reties it. 

Sansa’s eyes are wide and fixed on him when he looks up. She doesn’t move for a long moment, the shifting shadows from the swinging lantern playing across her face; then her gaze drops to the floor and her shoulders sag. The bruise is starkly visible on her cheek as she sits, seawater dripping from the ends of her hair, on the edge of the bed. A trickle of blood runs down her wet cheek, from her hairline to her chin. 

The realization comes to him like plunging into the Shivering Sea, a cold shock down his spine. Sansa is afraid of him, of what she thinks he wants. He wishes that he was a hero of legend, the sort that could take on a city full of guards to avenge his lady—not that Sansa is his lady, of course—but he would slay them all if he could, every man who had ever taught the little girl who played the princess to their knights how to fear. 

“You need to rest,” he says, gentling his voice like he was talking to a spooked horse. He reaches out slowly, trying not to startle her, and wipes away some of the blood. There’s a dark purplish mark just above her temple, bleeding slowly. It doesn’t look serious, thankfully, just a cut. She’ll survive. “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe in here.”

She nods, but she’s curling into herself as she does; her knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapping around her legs. He curses silently—damn the Lannisters for starting this war, damn the Baratheons for marrying them and giving them power, damn the Kingsguard for not protecting her. Damn the Targaryens and their fucking dragons for making an Iron Throne in the first place, damn the Greyjoys for losing their rebellion, and damn the Starks, too, for infecting him with their honor and loyalty. Damn them all, damn every last one of them, every king and every lord and every oathbreaking knight, who swore to defend the innocent but hurt her. Damn the seven kingdoms, damn the whole _fucking_ continent!

He forces himself to breathe and pulls a knife from his belt. It’s a small blade, barely more than a pen-knife, but it’ll hurt if she stabs someone with it. He offers it to her hilt-first. 

“If anyone touches you, you can stab them with this,” he tells her. “Try to get some sleep, it’’s been a long night.”

Her long fingers wrap around the hilt, just barely brushing his hand, and she looks up at him like she’s never seen him before. 

“Thank you, Theon,” she says, her voice soft. 

“You’re welcome.” On impulse, he presses a kiss to the top of her head, the way Robb would have. “I won’t let anyone hurt you again. I promise.”

There’s an enormous pile of gold and jewels weighing down _Sea Bitch_, King’s Landing is little more than a fading smudge of smoke on the western horizon as they sail into the sunrise, and Theon’s newest tattoo is burning on his legs: the fish-scale pattern that marks a man of the Iron Islands, stretching from his ankles to his knees. 

He had spent ten years in Winterfell without a tattooist to mark his accomplishments—his first kill, his first fuck, _anything_—and he’d have never dared to tattoo himself. He didn’t have the tools, he didn’t have the training, and worst of all, nobody to chant the prayers to the tap-tap-tapping of the chisel. If he had died in Winterfell, if Lord Stark had taken his head, it would be with only his child’s marks to show to the Drowned God when he reached his halls. 

When he had first been taken to Winterfell, he had proudly shown off the inked bands on his wrists that marked him as Theon Greyjoy, a son of Alannys Harlaw, the kraken on his back that marked him as part of House Greyjoy, the stripes on his sides for his first sword and bow. Lady Catelyn had nearly scrubbed the skin off of him before she realized that the ink wouldn’t wash away. She’d been horrified when she’d realized, and he’s still not sure whether it was that she had scoured his skin red and raw, almost to bleeding, or that the marks were permanent. 

Between Áki—the ship’s tattooist, a grim, silent man with ink covering every inch of his skin—and Dagmer’s droning voice chanting the prayers while Theon tries not to scream, Theon will have his full marks by the time they get back to the Iron Islands. By the time he sees Robb again, there’ll be no doubt that Theon is the Prince of Pyke, heir to the Driftwood Crown, not with the fish-scale pattern on his legs, the curving stripes along his sides for a warrior grown and bloodied, the snarling sea-beasts on his arms. Seeing the Lannister wealth will convince his father to send ships south, to ally with the North, and once he gets Sansa to Robb, nobody will question Robb’s faith in him. They’ll hail him as a hero instead. 

They’ve gold in their hold, Sansa is safely locked in his cabin—he knows his crew, trusts them to sink a ship or raid a town, but he cannot and will not trust them with Sansa Stark—and it’s a beautiful day for sailing. There’s a fair, strong wind blowing from the north, lifting their sails high. A pod of dolphins had swam up beside them while Theon was getting tattooed. A blessing from the Drowned God, his crew all agrees on that, but the thought stirs a memory of the nightmare that he had sent Theon: the rough throne, the blood-slick walls, Robb’s glaring eyes, bluer than any sea or sky, too bright to be real. 

_You did this._

Dagmer sits beside him. 

“You’ve done well.”

“I know.”

“Don’t get cocky.” Dagmer’s eyes narrow. “What did you take, anyway?”

“Lord Stark’s sword,” he says, smirking and leaning back on his elbows. “A Valyrian steel greatsword. Too big to be useful in a fight, really, but it’s valuable.”

“And the girl you’re keeping in your cabin?”

Theon chokes. “What girl?”

“I knew you when you were knee-high, boy, don’t think you can lie to me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lies. 

Dagmer raises an eyebrow. Theon would rather catch fire and burn to death than admit it to either of them, but the resemblance to Lady Catelyn is uncanny. 

“…Her name’s Sansa.”

“You took the _Stark girl?”_

“It’s not like that!”

Dagmer drags a hand over his face, muttering curses. “No, of course it’s not. You always did love Iria and Leanon.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you’re a soft heart for girls trapped in towers.” Dagmer snorts. “Suppose you wouldn’t remember it, but you told us your version of the story one night, where Leanon steals Iria instead of drowning. Your father scolded you for fantasizing, but I told him you were a born raider, to think like that.”

Theon’s face burns. Dagmer clucks his tongue and ruffles Theon’s hair. Theon knocks his hand away, glaring half-heartedly. 

“If your father’s not as proud of you as I am when we reach Pyke, he’s a blind fool.”

Theon blinks away the sudden, stinging tears; swallows around the lump in his throat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this house we love Dadmer. 
> 
> Next time: Sansa Tully


	4. Sansa II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead! I haven't abandoned this story! have a slightly longer chapter to make up for my absence

SANSA WAKES TO LIGHT FILLING THE ROOM, the late morning sun slanting in through a small window. Awareness comes to her in stages: the bed is uncomfortable and hard beneath her, and it’s rocking with a steady back-and-forth like a cradle. There’s a scraping sound somewhere nearby. Her body aches and her head pounds. Her arms and legs feel restrained, like she’s tied up in something. 

She opens her eyes, squinting against the brightness. She’s in an unfamiliar room—rope nets hold piles of someone else’s clothes against the walls; an unlit lantern swings overhead; the wood paneling on the walls is carved with knotted patterns of krakens and sea monsters. Outside the round window, the ocean sparkles in the sun like millions of sapphires, and across the room from her, Theon Greyjoy lounges in a chair, sprawled out like a sleeping cat, sharpening a large curved dagger. 

Her memories of last night are confused and jumbled, and they feel like they belong to someone else—someone brave and bold, someone more like Arya, someone who could do things like escape from King’s Landing and run from the guards and—did she kiss Theon?

She remembers staring up at him, the urge to lean up and capture his lips with hers filling her, his eyes dark and intense and thrilling as they met hers. She can almost still feel the strength in his arms and the warmth of his hands. 

“Good, you’re awake,” Theon says, glancing up at her. “Sleep well?”

“I did, thank you. I—” She shifts, sitting up, and realizes that she’s still fully dressed, even still in her cloak. “Did I sleep in my clothes?”

She thinks she sees Theon flush, but that’s surely nothing more than a trick of the light. “You were worried I might—I thought it would be better to just let you sleep in your clothes.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry for making you go through all this trouble for me.”

Theon snorts. “It was no trouble, princess, trust me.”

She wants to know if they kissed last night, or if that was another dream, but she doesn’t know how to ask. Theon would probably just make a joke about it, say something suggestive and lewd. 

“Where are we?” she asks instead. 

“Dragonstone, or nearly, at the rate we’re going. We’ve got a good wind today; we’ll sail around the Stormlands, Dorne, and the Westerlands, stop by Pyke, then I’ll deliver you to Robb.”

“And this is…your ship?”

He grins. “Aye, she’s mine. _Sea Bitch_, she’s called—don’t give me that look, I didn’t name her.”

“It’s a terrible name.”

“Don’t you know?” He leans in close, his eyes like storm at sea—no, a storm doesn’t have that heat. “I’m a terrible pirate who steals princesses from their bedchambers.”

“Did you?” she asks, not sure what the feeling roiling in her stomach is. Fear, perhaps; Theon may be her brother’s best friend, but she had thought Joffery her love, and that had proven false. She knows that Theon seduces women often—she’s heard him bragging, heard her mother’s complaints against him; if he desires her…

It might not be fear, actually. Theon would never hurt her. 

“Did you steal me?” she repeats, feeling her face heating. 

“I’m only teasing, princess. Hard to steal someone who wants to go with you.” He stands up, pulling away. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Sansa. I swear. So long as you’re onboard this ship, you’re under my protection.”

She might have only dreamed the kiss, but she remembers the heat of it, the press of his hand to her waist—what if it had gone further? If he had kissed her deeper, pressed their bodies together—how would that feel, the heat of him, his hands on her skin…

“And in exchange?”

“What?”

“For your protection.” Her face burns. “What do you want in exchange for your protection?”

Theon gives her a long, strange look before saying, “Nothing from you,” and leaving.

Sansa turns the sentence over in her mind, trying out different inflections on it—_nothing_ from you? Nothing from _you_? Nothing _from_ you? Last night, when he stood in her bedchamber, he had said that he was after the glory—stealing her from under the lion’s nose. 

_Nothing from you_.

Sansa debates for a long time whether she should leave the cabin or not, pacing the room until she’s satisfied she won’t stumble as the ship crests a wave. Eventually her hunger wins out over her nerves, and she goes in search of food. 

The cabin door opens out onto a corridor lit only by dim, swinging lanterns made from red glass. Other doors open off of it, into what are presumably other cabins like the one she had left. A rope ladder hangs at the end of the corridor, stretching down into darkness and up into the sunlight. 

She bites her lip as she realizes that her skirts will make this difficult, finally gathering them up in one hand as though she were climbing a staircase. The swaying ladder makes her feel far too exposed, but she grits her teeth through it. She has no intention of being trapped because she won’t climb a ladder. 

The sunlight is dazzling when she steps into the brightness. It’s late afternoon, the sun heavy near the horizon, and the wind whips at her skirts and hair. Belatedly, she realizes that she should have braided it—her curls are flying into her face. 

She’s never been on a ship before, and she hadn’t realized how _fast_ they go. They crash through the waves, momentarily weightless as they crest a swell before plunging down again. It’s exhilarating just standing on the deck. She casts an eye upwards to where the wind whistles through the rigging, the sails stretched and straining with the breeze, the creak and groan of wood and rope. 

Men are lounging around, enjoying the last of the sunlight. Their clothes are in the Ironborn style—high-collared vests with broad bands on the hems. Their arms are on display and they’re all inked, with the same wide bands on their wrists that she’s seen on Theon, but they’ve all got other marks as well, covering their arms—snarling sea-beasts she couldn’t begin to name, eight-pointed stars made of inked knots, braids and interlacing, intricate patterns she wouldn’t have expected of them. Their legs are bared by their knee-breeches, revealing fish-scale patterns on their legs. No two men have the exact same patterns of marks, and she wonders if they mean anything, or if they’re just decoration. 

She scans the clusters of men for Theon, and finds him sprawled out casually in the rigging by the bowsprit, one foot dangling down towards the water as his knife flashes around something that might be bone. There are inked fish-scales on his legs as well, from his knees down to his ankles. She’s fairly certain those are new, though she had hardly had the chance to notice such a thing before now. 

He’s smiling, which is the bigger surprise. She hadn’t really known that he could—smirk, yes, everyone in Winterfell knew he was always smirking, but she had thought that was the extent of his smile. She’s never seen him like this before, relaxed and—in his element, he really is. This is where he belongs, where even the small smile that graces his lips lights his whole face up. 

She hadn’t even known he was sad, but he must have been, because he’s never looked like this: the wind ruffling his hair, the sunlight making his brown skin glow, smiling contentedly as he carves whatever it is he’s carving and listens to raucous singing of one of the knots of men. (He’s humming along, and Sansa pretends that her cheeks aren’t burning. He has a nice voice. It’s a little rough and untrained, but somehow the sweeter for it. It doesn’t make the stars stop in their turning, but it doesn’t need to. The joy of it is enough.)

He glances up, sees her watching him, and that small, satisfied smile twists into the more familiar smirk. She feels herself scowl a little in response, despite herself—she had liked the smile better. 

Theon swings out of the rigging, the knife and bone flashing away into his belt. She hadn’t noticed earlier, but he’s dressed like his men, arms on full display. They look…strong. 

“Looking for something?”

“The kitchens?” She’s not sure why it comes out as a question. 

He frowns faintly, a tiny line appearing between his eyebrows. “I would have brought you food at dinnertime.”

“Am I your prisoner?”

“No.” His reply is immediate and gratifying. 

“Then I’m not spending all day in a single cabin.”

The smirk is back. “My men are rough; I wouldn’t want your delicate sensibilities to be offended by their coarse table manners, princess.”

She sniffs with mock hauteur. “Thank you for your concern, but they’ll hardly be the worst company I’ve dined with—after all, I’ve dined with kings.”

His face is blank for a moment that sends inexplicable nerves through her stomach, before he laughs, delight in his eyes. He opens his mouth to say something, but whatever it is gets cut off by the arrival of a large, grizzled man with a large, thick scar running from his lower lip down to his chin. The girl Sansa was before everything might have quailed at the sight—Theon looks like he expects it of her—but she focuses instead on the twin braids in his beard, one on each side of the pitted scar and strung with beads. It’s a touch that she might have expected from Theon, who’s always been a bit of a peacock, but not from this man, who looks as though he was rough-hewn from stone. They have the same color eyes, though, green-grey with small flecks of gold in their depths.

Theon clicks his tongue at the man. “We were having a _conversation_.”

“I’m sure.” The man gives Sansa a surveying look. She pulls herself up to her full height, viscerally aware that she’s only wearing a thin nightgown. “So, this is the girl, then? S’pose she’s pretty enough, but a bit young for my tastes.”

Theon speculates crudely about what the man’s tastes were, using language that would give her lady mother apoplexy, before introducing him as Dagmer Cleftjaw, his first mate.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Sansa says with a polite curtsey, determined to make a good first impression. He might be a grizzled Ironborn warrior, but that’s no reason to let her manners start slipping. 

“Dagmer, this is Sansa _Waters_.” He emphasizes the last name and punctuates it with a glare at Dagmer, who raises a scarred eyebrow and clicks his tongue at Theon. 

“She’s got the Tully coloring,” he says, in a tone that implies there’s a “you daft fool” following it.

Theon makes a rude gesture at Dagmer and says something that Sansa choses to hear as “Go away and quit bothering us.”

“In a minute. We’re coming up on a fleet.” His face twists into a fearsome scowl, heavy with old grudges. “Baratheon ships.”

“Stannis Baratheon holds Dragonstone,” Sansa supplies, “and he’s no friend to the Lannisters—he’s made claim to the Iron Throne.”

“He’s no friend to the Iron Islands, either.” 

“How many ships are there?” Theon asks. 

“I’d say most the Royal Fleet.”

“Then we avoid them. No sense getting into a fight when we’re outnumbered and weighed down; we’ll save our strength for better targets.” His face twists into an ugly smirk. “We’ve no need for Stannis’s onions. Let him and the Lannisters destroy each other.”

Sansa fidgets with the edge of the blanket, trying to avoid looking at Theon. 

“Why did you call me Sansa Waters?” 

“Not many Ironborn would be happy with me rescuing a Stark.” Theon fusses with one of the cabinets cleverly hidden in the wall. “Speaking of which, I’m pretending you’re my salt wife.”

“Salt wife?” she echoes. 

“Ironborn can take as many wives as they can support. One rock wife, and many salt wives. All their children are legitimate, but only the rock wife’s sons inherit.” He draws out a length of chain and wraps it around her neck. It’s a little tighter than most of her necklaces, but not enough to be uncomfortable. “If you’re my salt wife, nobody will touch you.”

“Couldn’t you just tell them the truth?”

Theon barks out a harsh laugh. “They’d see me as a traitor, especially considering I’m already disobeying my father just by being here. I’d be lucky to get to shore without one of them shoving me overboard, and you, princess, would be a salt wife for true.”

“I see,” she says. “And _why_ are you disobeying your father?”

“He sent us to raid the North, but I thought it was a bad idea, so I took my men south instead.”

“No, I meant: why are you taking orders from your father in the first place?”

“Because he’s raiding the North,” he says, slowly, as though he wasn’t sure she’d heard him properly. “Which means that Robb is honor-bound to take my head if I show up in his camp again, because I’m a hostage against my father doing exactly that?”

“Robb wouldn’t do that,” she says, but there’s a twinge of doubt. Robb loves Theon, they’re the best of friends…

And Joffery is the rightful king and her one true love. 

“I’d really rather not find that out for certain.”

“So where do I come into this?”

“Obviously, I deliver you to Robb and he’s so grateful to have you back safe and sound that he lets me go with my head still attached. I’m counting on you, princess.”

Sansa looks out the small window, watching the waves rocking back and forth, remembering the way his face had darkened when he saw the bruise on her face. 

“Father always said you were his ward. I never really thought about you being…”

“A hostage? Guess we have that in common.” Theon’s hand brushes the still-livid bruise on her cheek. 

“Did Father ever—” she asks, suddenly alarmed. 

“Not really.” He shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “He was never deliberately cruel to me, except to remind me of my place. I think most of the time he just tried not to think about me.”

“You must have missed your family terribly.”

Theon hums noncommittally. “My mother, mostly.” His gaze drops to his hands, watching his fingers twist together. “I…I’ll never see her again. She died when I was twelve.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I saw what they did to your father. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“I almost killed Joffery. I…he showed me Father’s head, up on the wall there, and I wanted to just shove him off—I didn’t even care that I’d fall too—I had started forward, I was going to do it.” Her eyes fill with tears. 

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Theon’s thumb brushes her cheek. “I’m glad I could rescue you.”

Her tears spill over all at once, and she sobs into Theon’s shoulder. 

“Uh,” he says, sounding alarmed. “No, don’t cry, please don’t cry. Fuck. C’mon, princess, you know I don’t know how to handle crying women.”

She can’t help the watery laugh. She had been in the market with Jeyne when one of Theon’s girls had started sobbing that he had never loved her at all; Theon’s panic-struck face at her tears had been the amusement of the embroidery circle for about a week afterwards. Jeyne had done a particularly funny impression of it.

Oh gods, _Jeyne!_ Guilt stabs at her; she hasn’t thought of her friend since the household was arrested; her head hadn’t been displayed, but that doesn’t mean she’s safe. 

She sobs all the harder, clinging to Theon. Jeyne’s her best friend, and Sansa had barely noticed that she was missing. 

“Why do I keep making this worse,” Theon grumbles above her, tucking her head under his chin and rubbing circles on her back. 

“Sorry,” Sansa says into his chest. It's nice, having Theon hugging her like this. Comfortable. She sniffles, trying to calm herself down. 

“It’s alright. You’ve been through a lot, you’ll feel better in a few days.”

She isn’t tired, but a thought sticks in her mind. “This is your room, isn’t it?” 

“There are other places I can sleep, don’t worry about me.”

“You should sleep in your cabin.”

“And where will you sleep, then?”

Sansa falters. “We’ve shared a bed before.”

“Only when your siblings were also there. It’s fine, Sansa—”

“Your men won’t respect your authority if you’re sharing their quarters. Besides, aren't you pretending I'm your wife?”

“Weren’t you sobbing a minute ago?” 

“Don’t change the subject, Theon.” She scrubs at her eyes, rubbing off the tear-tracks. “You’ll sleep better in a bed.”

Theon sighs. “Just don’t tell your lady mother, or she’ll have my head, Robb be damned.” 

“It’ll be our secret.”

“You better not kick me.”

“I don’t kick!”

“Like a donkey, princess. And you snore.”

“A lady never snores. You, on the other hand…”

“Base slander! Such lies, and from a lady, no less!” He’s laughing, and Sansa can’t help but match his smile. Her head hurts from crying, her heart hurts from thinking about Jeyne, but she’s smiling, and everything seems more alright than it has in a while. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time: Tyrion runs out of wine


	5. Tyrion I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, bitch, bet you thought you'd seen the last of me. 
> 
> Be honest: you all thought I was dead. Remember when I thought I would be doing weekly updates? Yeah, me neither.
> 
> Anyway, time is fake, next chapter will be up when the stars align, I'm still updating faster than Martin.

TYRION HAS A PROBLEM. 

Surprisingly enough, it’s not a problem that’s caused by wine, which usually accounts for about half of all of Tyrion’s problems. It isn’t even a problem caused by his family—well, not directly, at least—and that accounts for the other half. 

The problem is that a fourteen year old girl has managed to, _somehow_, vanish from the Red Keep under everyone’s notice without a trace. 

He’ll give it to Sansa Stark: he never expected it of her. He knows that her façade of not being very bright is just that, but it truly amazes him that she had managed to fool him, as well. 

Tyrion contemplates the swirling wine in his goblet. There may or may not have been an Ironborn raid last night—the talk of the guards is inconclusive, and he’s inclined to think that not even the most salt-drunk squid would be stupid enough to attack the Red Keep—and everyone who thought there was such an attempt agreed that it was only in the lower levels, raiding the treasury for gold and jewels, not higher up in the towers where Sansa’s bedchambers are. 

And if it had been Ironborn raiders who took her, why only the girl? Why leave all the finery she had with her? Even a single dress would be valuable, if only for the raw materials it was made of, and she’d left jewelry behind as well. 

Her door was locked from the outside, and Tyrion knew exactly how many keys there were to the door—all of them accounted for. None of the guards had seen her leaving. She might have climbed out her window, but someone would have surely seen her doing that, and nothing about Sansa seems like she _would_ climb out of her window and down the side of her tower. If she were escaping, she’d go through the castle.

Of course, it’s possible that Tyrion knows nothing at all about Sansa Stark for true. 

Ironborn raiders. He’d dismiss the idea as guards trying to excuse their failure at capturing Sansa as she escaped, but there is gold missing. The guards might have taken it themselves, he supposes, or Sansa might have taken it as she escaped—but then why leave the easier target of her own jewels and dresses? Nothing quite fits together, so he tries another angle to the thought. 

Say it was an Ironborn raid. The Starks are unlikely to have allies in the Iron Islands—whoever thought that the hostage plan would build an alliance was an idiot—

_Hostage. _

Tyrion thinks a number of increasingly foul curses. 

Theon Greyjoy is friend to Robb Stark, by all accounts and by Tyrion’s memory of the boy, and rescuing his friend’s sister from imprisonment would put Robb in his debt. The Lannisters might be famous for always paying their debts, but the ever-honorable Starks would hardly let such a debt stand unanswered. Does he have a ship? Could he get one?

If Sansa was kidnapped by Ironborn raiders led by Theon Greyjoy, she’ll probably be safe with them; there’s no use harming your bargaining chip, a lesson he has still not managed to work into his idiot nephew’s crowned skull. Then again, Greyjoy is Ironborn, and there’s truth to the saying that blood will out. Tyrion’s never heard of an Ironborn that wasn’t vicious. 

It’s likely not Greyjoy, though. The _why_ makes enough sense, but the _how_ doesn’t. Theon is a hostage, friend or no; Robb Stark is too honorable to let him go and break his father’s word in the process. Even if he escaped, where did the ship come from? Or the men to crew it?

Of course, there are other possibilities. If Sansa was kidnapped by Ironborn raiders led by _someone else_, for whatever reason—trading her for Greyjoy? simple revenge? leverage? lust for a pretty young girl? (though _surely_ there were easier targets) or maybe just to prove that they could—she may or may not be safe, depending on who is leading them and what they want, and on how well she can manipulate the situation.

If Sansa was not kidnapped by Ironborn raiders, then she could be anywhere and none of them have any idea where she could be or where she’s going. 

Joffery wants her back. Tyrion wouldn’t mind that, of course, but he’ll settle for knowing where she is. 

His sister and his idiot nephew have managed to lose them all the leverage they ever had over the Starks. They don’t have Lord Stark—he really needs to get the heads off the castle walls and return them to Winterfell, honestly, they’re at war but they aren’t _savages_—and they don’t have either of the girls now. Arya Stark is, frankly, likely dead at this point. Sansa Stark is clever enough to survive _them_; if she manages to get to her brother, they’re all fucked. Robb Stark is a canny warrior—the way he’s making Tywin run scared would amuse Tyrion more if not for Tyrion’s lot being thrown in with his lord father’s—but likely not a politician. Men who wield swords rarely wield pens so well. But Sansa _is_ a politician, and she’ll have all sorts of sorrowful stories of the dishonor and abuse of the Lannisters that could turn neutral houses against them. Dorne, for one, as though the grudge they nurse at their breast for the deaths of Elia Martell and her children wasn’t enough. Bringing Dorne into the fight as an ally of the North means fighting a war on two fronts, a war that they have been losing since Robb Stark left Winterfell. 

Well. She disappeared last night, going wherever it is she’s going, but presumably she hasn’t gotten there yet. There’s little that’s only a day’s travel away—Dragonstone, sure, Stannis might have sent his smuggler to get her, that’s…

Actually, that’s _very_ possible. Set the crew to the lower levels as distraction while the Onion Knight whisks the girl away to Dragonstone. The plan isn’t much like Stannis, he admits, but perhaps—there is the rumor that he’s taken the red witch as a lover, and that seems little like Stannis as well. He believes the rumor that it’s the Onion Knight in Stannis’s bed better. 

He drains his cup, pours himself another one, drains that one as well, and contemplates simply drinking directly from the wineskin. 

Stannis could use Sansa to force her brother’s surrender, the way Joffery theoretically was doing, or to buy himself an alliance. More likely the first than the second; Stannis has far too much stubborn pride to suffer the loss of the North and their Riverlands allies. Sansa could use Stannis, for that matter. Stannis isn’t an unclever man, but his advisors…Davos Seaworth, low-born and blindly loyal; Selyse Florent, half-mad from her stillbirths; that red witch, whatever her name is, the religious zealot. Any one of them could be easily manipulated to Sansa’s side. 

_Plans_. Seven help him, Tyrion needs plans. 

First, they need to find Sansa and bring her back alive. That will be hard; even the Narrow Sea is a big place; it would be easy to miss one ship, and they don’t have many ships to search with. _And_ whoever took her won’t be letting her go without a fight. They need to act fast, before they reach wherever it is they’re going, before the trail is lost. 

Fuck, she might even be going to Essos, there’s surviving Targaryens and their loyalists there. Tyrion’s lost track of which ones are still alive. He takes a long drink from his wineskin. 

Second, he needs to deal with Stannis. He’s far too close to the Keep for comfort, and Tyrion mislikes assuming any position unassailable. Better to squelch him now, before he becomes a true threat, if the rumors of his Essosi allies are true. He’s not sure how he’s going to do that yet, but he’ll figure something out. 

Third, Dorne is simmering with hatred against the Lannisters. He needs to find some way to keep Dorne tied to the crown and keep them from joining forces with the Starks, or simply rising in rebellion themselves. He’d suggest a marriage—there’s a Martell boy the right age for Myrcella—but Cersei would never let any of her precious cubs go, especially if it was Tyrion suggesting the match. He might not have anything to worry about, he assures himself, Sansa might be going North instead of South. She could be on her way to White Harbor or—

Or to her aunt in the Eyrie. _Fuck_. 

Tyrion goes to pour himself a new glass of wine and finds that the wineskin is empty, which really seems to be just his luck. 

Trying to convince Joffery of anything that didn’t come out of his own thick skull is all but impossible, so Tyrion doesn’t. Instead, he makes his way to a particular dockside tavern, wearing the plainest clothes he has. It won’t make him particularly nondescript—he’s rather distinctive—but advertising his wealth in a place like this is stupid. 

The place is crowded enough that nobody takes particular notice of him as he walks to the back, to a knife-scarred table inhabited, somewhat permanently, by a particularly fine specimen of brute. Large black stains and heavy scars mar the little skin he shows. 

“Hello, Atan. Miss me?”

The grin he gets in return shows off the deep scarring on his cheeks and lips. Tyrion is no stranger to scars, but Atan’s are unsettling. It’s not any one of them, it’s something about all of them together that makes him look like a patchwork doll made flesh and given a truly eerie ability to find people. 

“Well, I know you missed my gold. There’s a ship I want you to catch. An Ironborn ship, if the rumors I’m hearing are true. Bring me Sansa Stark, alive and unharmed, and I’ll make you a wealthy man.”

Atan’s raised eyebrow is surprisingly eloquent. 

“She’s fourteen, tall, red-haired. She went missing last night. We’re not sure who she’s with, but as I said, the rumor mill says Ironborn.” He might be banking too hard on Atan’s distaste for his former people. “The Crown will supply you with men, including a knight of the Kingsguard.” The Hound was fond of Sansa; she might be more inclined to trust him than another. Of course, if his first thought of Theon Greyjoy was right, she likely won’t go with the Hound willingly; but better than any other of the Kingsguard. 

Trade-offs are always dangerous games. 

If only Barristan Selmy was still around…but Cersei and Joffery don’t have a brain between them, and he’s not a man who can be bought. And he wouldn’t be willing to work with Atan. 

At least Cersei hasn’t done anything too stupid since the Stark girl disappeared. Cersei is no cleverer than she needs to be, but she does sometimes display a basic understanding of strategy; she’s keeping her son on a shorter leash than usual. They can’t have it getting out that they’ve lost their last leverage, and Joffery might well let that slip. 

Atan grunts, holding out his hand, and Tyrion drops a small pouch of gold into it. Atan draws out three of the coins at random and presses into them, each in turn, with a huge, curved knife. Tyrion would be annoyed at the assumption that he might try to use counterfeit coins, but he knows that Atan really does that for the excuse to wave a knife around. 

Satisfied, he puts the coins back into the pouch and nods once. 

Tyrion really hates hiring Atan; he’s a savage brute so terrible that even the Iron Islands disgraced and banished him, but until they get a Master of Ships and a fleet, he has few options. Atan’s like a bloodhound, and everyone knows that the Ironborn are all but unstoppable at sea. Besides, he’ll keep his word—such that a man who can’t speak can _give_ his word—so long as he’s being paid for it, which makes him refreshingly predictable. Sansa will be returned unharmed. He can’t say the same for anyone unlucky enough to be caught with her, of course, but Tyrion doesn’t particularly care. 

There is the possibility that Atan and the Hound will end up killing each other, which is little loss to Tyrion as long as Sansa is brought back. In fact, it might even serve a purpose: Atan will be dead, which is certainly no grief to anyone, and Tyrion dislikes the Hound on the simple principle that he was once Cersei’s sworn sword. 

_Speak of a dragon_, Tyrion thinks, grimacing. 

Cersei is waiting for him in the courtyard, because that seems to be how his luck is holding today. She glares at him in greeting. A lesser man—or one less used to her—would shrivel like a raisin. He’s seen it happen. 

“I don’t suppose you’ve finally made yourself useful and found our lost little bird, have you?” she asks, her nails digging into his shoulder. 

“I was out hiring a ship, since we’re without a Master of Ships. I’m sending the Hound after her, to bring her back to your loving care. I’m sure you’ve missed her terribly.”

“At long last, your brain has finally pickled from all that shit wine you drink.” Cersei brushes past him. “If she’s not brought back, I’m blaming it on you. I’m sure Father will love to hear how you lost us the girl.”

“Why it almost sounds like you care about her. Can it be you have a heart?”

Cersei pauses. “Don’t be absurd,” she says, but Tyrion is sure he can see a glimmer of emotion in Cersei’s eyes.

Or maybe it’s just the wine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Robb gets a visitor


End file.
